Smith: They didn't run together at Analy High but are now a pair

Even if you don’t run, you might want to be at the starting line of the Healdsburg Half Marathon early-early the morning of Oct. 9.

Above her running shoes, Teray McBride will be dressed in a wedding gown. Kirk Elrod will sport a tuxedo-ish T-shirt.

Though thrilled that they will marry, the couple’s combined four children aren’t overly excited that the nuptials will occur at 6:45 a.m. at the starting line in downtown Healdsburg.

The newlyweds’ first official act will be to run the 13.1-mile race, set to start at 7:30 a.m.

Kirk and Teray were schoolmates at Sebastopol’s Analy High in the mid-1980s but didn’t know each other.

Both later married others. Kirk has one child and works as an alcohol and drug counselor. Teray is in insurance and is a grandmother.

They’d both begun running when they connected on Facebook two years back. It was Teray who suggested they lace up together one day.

“I thought I was just looking for a running partner,” she said. “That’s not what he was thinking.”

HHHHHH

‘GAME OF THRONES’ battered the competition at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys celebration in L.A. Victorious, too, was a far gentler holiday special that co-starred Charlie Brown, Kristen Bell and President and Mrs. Obama.

“It’s Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown” took the Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program.

Did you see it last December? The special repackaged 1965’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the phenomenally successful and timeless animated feature by “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz, producer Lee Mendelson and director Bill Melendez.

Sparky Schulz died at his Santa Rosa home in 2000; Melendez passed in 2008. Mendelson did his part to make the 50th anniversary show something truly special.

Having heard that the Obama family sang along to the music of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” each year while decorating their tree, he asked if the first family would appear in the two-hour “It’s Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown,” hosted by Kristen Bell.

The Obamas agreed, and now the show has won a Creative Arts Emmy. The awards ceremony airs Sept. 17 on FXX.

HHHHHH

HOME TO HEAL: Today, badly burned Sebastopol yarn spinner extraordinaire and retired teacher Judith Ashley flies home from the overseas trip that she expected to be far safer than some of her earlier international jaunts.

Ashley went to Norway in early August to stay in a friend’s rustic and rural cabin while she collected lichen and mushrooms for the natural dyes she uses with the wool she turns into yarn.

The cabin’s propane tank exploded. Ashley suffered extensive burns and half of the cabin, her passport, clothes and money were destroyed.

Donations to a GoFundMe appeal are helping to bring her home.

“She is still in bandages,” said son Trey Dunia, “and there is a long recovery yet to go. But we are all grateful that she will be arriving soon.”

The traveler surely sees the irony in being badly hurt on a yarn-dye mission to Norway after she was earlier chased out of a South African shantytown, bribed Sandinistas for safe passage through a Nicaraguan jungle and camped in the wilds with native Peruvians.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.